We’ve watched Conservatives lose their livelihoods and be forced to seek other vocations to support their families because the Liberal social media outlets have demonetized them and hidden their content from those who actually wanted to see it. After 2 years of censorship, shadow bans, and periodically, steep OVERNIGHT declines in our Facebook traffic, I started seriously evaluating alternatives to Facebook earlier this year.

There were plenty to choose from. I ran them all in tandem to see which were viable options for the type of audience we connect with. Considerations included:

Ease of use.

Active traffic and new content.

Ease of finding like-minded folks to connect with.

In the end, it came down to 2 sites for us… MeWe.com and OneWay.com. Both have an easy to use, robust platform with plenty of activity where you can easily find like-minded people to connect with. In the end, we decided to go begin building a new following on OneWay.

You can find links to the other sites we tested out at the very bottom of the article if you want to take a look at them as well. Let me know what you decide to go with. And connect with us on any of the platforms you find us on!

UPDATE 4/16/18… More info on Gab, see below for details.

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OneWay launched in March of this year and is still changing daily. For such a young platform, there is already a good crowd of people there sharing a variety of content. The owner/founder is a Conservative Christian who was fed up with Facebook’s censorship. He’s vowed to keep an open platform with only a couple of exceptions which are clearly outlined in their About.

If you want to get in on the ground floor of something that has potential and are willing to work through any glitchy moments that come when something is in growth mode, this is the place to be. There are lots of new features in the works as well as improvements to come.

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****** UPDATE 9/4/18 Re: MeWe Co-Founder ******MeWe’s CEO, Mark Weinstein reached out to us to address some of our concerns about the platform, specifically, the fact that Jonathan Wolfe has not been a part of the company for over 4 years and Wolfe has since removed his internet claim as MeWe’s Co-Founder from his website.

We’ve been on MeWe since 2014 and it has grown into a nice community of folks. There are plenty of options to connect with like-minded folks, especially conservatives. And since Facebook’s major privacy concerns, Conservatives have been heading there in droves! This likely would have been our first choice for replacing Facebook… until this.

Hat-tip to one of our listeners, Ray, who forwarded information he uncovered about one of MeWe’s co-founders, Jonathan Wolfe. He’s Liberal. VERY Liberal. Check out his Twitter feed for yourself. After looking into his social media posts, I have serious concerns about building another following on a site run by Liberals.

The other co-founder, Mark Weinstein, who is largely the frontman for MeWe, doesn’t post anything personal. He’s a privacy advocate, which is great, since privacy is what’s driving so many away from Facebook. But privacy is only part of it.

****** UPDATE 9/4/18 Re: MeWe “Hateful” speech******
I did speak extensively with MeWe’s CEO, Mark Weinstein regarding the “hate speech” concern that we, and many other conservative online outlets have and why we have them. Mark was gracious to hear me out and have an open dialogue about it. I’m hopeful that the discussion around this part of their policy will continue into their board room and ultimately be clarified and reflected in their Terms of Service so that conservative media, like ours, can feel confident that time invested building a following on their platform isn’t obliterated in the future by someone who classifies their viewpoint as “hateful” simply because they don’t want others to hear it.

In the MeWe blog, Weinstein does address censorship concerns. He’s done many media interviews and written articles. Read them. Read what he’s saying. And then read what he ISN’T saying. It’s just as important. Of vital importance is how “hate”, “hateful”, and “hate speech” is defined.

In this post on Weinstein’s personal MeWe profile, he quotes their Terms of Service specifically prohibiting hateful content (I would link you to the specific post, but it doesn’t seem to be an option. You can visit his profile and search for it. It was posted ~Nov 2017.):

Again, this sounds great, until you consider that that is exactly what Facebook and YouTube are doing to Conservatives right now. Our speech is considered “hateful”. Therefore, it must be censored, silenced, or squelched. MeWe may not be censoring Conservatives now. Facebook didn’t in the beginning either. But there could come a day when they do.

Weinstein’s privacy advocacy is admirable and his concerns with Facebook are real. But if he’s in business with someone so unabashedly Liberal as Jonathan Wolfe, I have to assume he isn’t much different. And that’s a serious concern for me building a following on MeWe.

As we’ve seen with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Google, he who controls the company, controls the content. OUR content! We are content providers. Not just those of us who write for websites. EVERY… SINGLE… USER on those platforms provides content with every post they make. And it’s important to know who we’re aligning with.

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We setup and tested accounts on the following social media alternatives, which I have ruled out for now.

www.socialcross.org – Nicely done platform. Not enough posting activity. Not much political stuff going on. Which is a shame. This platform has a lot of potential if only the 80,000+ profiles on there would participate and post content!

GAB UPDATE 4/16/18: To answer a few questions. I am NOT anti-Muslim or anti-Turkey. I AM anti-antisemitism! I’m not saying ALL Muslims are antisemitic. I love my Muslim friends dearly and I’ve NEVER heard them spew hate toward Jews. However, that said, there is a segment of the Muslim population who DO hate Jews. And on Gab, I did see a fair amount of objectionable content, specifically antisemitic. Am I saying that it’s coming from one of the site’s owners or managers? No I’m not. Because I don’t know that specifically. It could be a coincidence. Or not. You decide.

We were on Gab for over a year. The site is active with posts. And it’s definitely a free speech zone. There were plenty of things I found objectionable in addition to the antisemitic content. But with free speech, you take the good with the bad and you get to be a responsible adult setting up your own content feed. Their user content didn’t really line up with ours.

In making a decision about which platforms to build on, Gab never truly “felt right” for us. Something just never really clicked. When we learned that one of the principles there was Turkish Muslim, it really was just the last nail in the coffin for us with Gab. And while it may have been the final factor in the decision, it certainly wasn’t the only factor, nor the most important factor. But it does stand to reason, that an outspoken Conservative Christian won’t be comfortable on a site containing so much Jewish hate.

www.minds.com – Seemed like a decent platform. But I couldn’t figure out how to connect with like-minded people. After months of trying, I gave up. If it’s that hard to figure out, our fan base isn’t going to tough it out either.

www.teapartycommunity.com – We’ve been on this platform since 2011. For whatever reason, it just never seemed to catch on. Lately, traffic does seem to be picking up. So maybe there’s hope. This site is Conservative, Christian owned.

We have not tried these 2 yet.

www.infinitysn.com – This one just went live this week, after a LONG-anticipated launch. It’s still in BETA. Sadly, this one for me is just too late to the game. We may check it out if the others don’t work out. But not now. The good news is, I have it on good authority that it is owned by a Christian U.S. Veteran.

Christ following, wife, mother, grandmother, and small business owner with passions for holistic wellness, gardening, raising critters, and preserving our Constitutional liberties especially free speech, religious freedom, and the 2nd Amendment.
God gave me the most wonderful husband, who I love dearly and am grateful to have the opportunity to work with every day as his Producer in this Real Side venture. When you see my posts, they are truly mine. So please don't hold him accountable for what I write. Contrary to what some say, I'm not a Stepford wife. I have my own opinions and am willing to share some of them here.

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